School Troubles
In the second grade I was transferred out of my original elementary school into a school on york and dolphin right around the corner from kensington avenue. Kensington avenue is a part of philadelphia that is dominated by one race, well not one race but one “type” of people that type of person(s) are latino or latina. So me moving from a predominantly african american school to this one was a huge adjustment. Me, myself being a african american with no ties to the latinos or their language which at the time seemed to be an alien language. The closest “tie” to latino language is being around my grandpa's house, he lives around the corner from Edison high school this area is also a latino dominated area. Me going to this new school was difficult. This new school that i would graduate at the top of my class in eighth grade was called “William H. Hunter elementary school” (school district of philadelphia.) In this school they did everything differently such as way they teach, the way they learn, what they teach. In this school i had many language obstacles to overcome perhaps the biggest was the fact that i didn’t talk or understand. Me not knowing spanish was an extreme disadvantage even more so than being a different race than everyone else.
Throughout my first year in “Hunter” I had difficulties in all my classes because not only were the students almost always speaking spanish but so were the teachers, so that the kids would understand the material. This was the biggest obstacle but not the only one. Another obstacle was that when i did speak the little spanish i had picked up i spoke it very slow, even to this day thats a disadvantage in high school during spanish class i speak slow so that i can pronounce each words properly. In elementary school when i spoke spanish slow i was laughed at. Another bad thing that came out of my first year in that school were i received my first “C”. I was laughed at and talked about because of my language,but i made a friend. We became friends what they learn and the language they thought in. Since I come from an African American household where English was the only language we spoke and so did he. This change want only drastic for me but also for my friend as well as, my family because now they worried about how I would learn rather than if i would learn. Also the way the school ran also affect the other black boy because he had similar problems with language so we became close friends because of language. Due to the other kids not accepting us we were forced to become friends. Me and the other boy had another big possible with acceptance we were called a name "Moreno" at the time I had no idea what that word meant. All i knew was that it was a reference to blacks. This problem was resolved quickly. After these acts my school experience became a lot better. There were no more classes with Spanish teaching or talking.
Also there were more kids of the black variety. In my mind the reason my experience became better is because of the addition of more black something the school was missing. From these experiences i learned how important language is to acceptance, popularity, and the overall ways people act toward each other because of differences. My experience with language wasn’t all bad during this time i also learned that language also brings people together because of either similarities to the group or differences. Language also shaped me to the person i am today because of that experience i learned to be careful with language because of language battles and language wars. I also learned to stay true to yourself because though all of the struggles you come by there can always be a good outcome.
Throughout my first year in “Hunter” I had difficulties in all my classes because not only were the students almost always speaking spanish but so were the teachers, so that the kids would understand the material. This was the biggest obstacle but not the only one. Another obstacle was that when i did speak the little spanish i had picked up i spoke it very slow, even to this day thats a disadvantage in high school during spanish class i speak slow so that i can pronounce each words properly. In elementary school when i spoke spanish slow i was laughed at. Another bad thing that came out of my first year in that school were i received my first “C”. I was laughed at and talked about because of my language,but i made a friend. We became friends what they learn and the language they thought in. Since I come from an African American household where English was the only language we spoke and so did he. This change want only drastic for me but also for my friend as well as, my family because now they worried about how I would learn rather than if i would learn. Also the way the school ran also affect the other black boy because he had similar problems with language so we became close friends because of language. Due to the other kids not accepting us we were forced to become friends. Me and the other boy had another big possible with acceptance we were called a name "Moreno" at the time I had no idea what that word meant. All i knew was that it was a reference to blacks. This problem was resolved quickly. After these acts my school experience became a lot better. There were no more classes with Spanish teaching or talking.
Also there were more kids of the black variety. In my mind the reason my experience became better is because of the addition of more black something the school was missing. From these experiences i learned how important language is to acceptance, popularity, and the overall ways people act toward each other because of differences. My experience with language wasn’t all bad during this time i also learned that language also brings people together because of either similarities to the group or differences. Language also shaped me to the person i am today because of that experience i learned to be careful with language because of language battles and language wars. I also learned to stay true to yourself because though all of the struggles you come by there can always be a good outcome.
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